Turnbull promises cheaper NBN but can't specify costs

Updated
January 31, 2013 08:57:00

The coalition will not proceed with the NBN if it wins government but will not specify the costs of any changes claiming the government will not release enough details of the present costs involved with the NBN rollout.

TONY EASTLEY: The Opposition has welcomed the changes to the draft anti-discrimination bill.

The Opposition's communications spokesman is Malcolm Turnbull. He says as the bill stood it was a threat to free speech.

Mr Turnbull has also welcomed the challenge of a September 14th election.

He's speaking to our chief political correspondent, Sabra Lane.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Well, we're all pleased. I'm sure everyone who cares about free speech, which is almost all Australians, would be very pleased that she's recognised that the bill she was proposing was outrageous.

SABRA LANE: To the election date, do you think it was a blunder by the Government calling this so early?

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Look, I'm pleased that the Government has announced it. I'll leave others to judge whether this was politically shrewd on the part of the Prime Minister. I have to say I don't think it will promote harmony on the Labor side that she had apparently no consultation with her Cabinet.

SABRA LANE: The policy document that Tony Abbott released on the weekend has you on the cover, you're in the TV ads. Is that an admission from Liberal Party headquarters that you're pretty popular, your image is needed to balance up the negative feelings that voters might have against Mr Abbott?

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Well, you'd really have to ask them about that but I, you know, I am a member of the shadow cabinet, I have an important portfolio. It will be significant in the elections. We are not electing a president here. We are electing a parliamentary government, the Abbott government, if there is an Abbott government, will be run as a cabinet government.

Tony Abbott is not going to be a presidential dictator and he is certainly not going to govern in the way Kevin Rudd did, paying scant attention to his colleagues.

SABRA LANE: Okay, come September 15 the Coalition's won, the NBN, what do you do? Stop work immediately?

MALCOLM TURNBULL: No, of course not. We are actually going to complete the NBN and we are going to complete it sooner, much sooner, and at much lower cost than Labor would have done and that is our commitment. All Australians will have access to very fast broadband sooner and at less cost to the taxpayer and more affordably to them than they would under Labor.

SABRA LANE: But some IT experts say that your plan still relies on copper, some argue that's already at the end of its useful life. Your proposal may well be cheaper but it might leave the nation with a second or even third tiered broadband system.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Well, in that case we'd be in very good company wouldn't we because we've got most of Europe, most of North America in exactly the same situation. I mean what a stupid thing these people are saying.

I mean copper, look, copper, wireless, glass - all of these are technologies. This is not a religious issue. It is a question of being business-like and getting the balance right as I said. The problem with this debate is that it is proceeding in some quarters as a quasi-religious debate. It is not.

This is just about business, it's about engineering and it's about balancing, as I said, the service to be delivered, the cost of delivering it and the time that it takes to deliver.

Now the problem that Labor's got with the NBN is the cost is stupendous, no cost benefit analysis, no analysis prior to going into a huge cost but worse still, it isn't happening or it's happening so slowly.

SABRA LANE: Okay, the total cost of your project.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Yes.

SABRA LANE: What is it?

MALCOLM TURNBULL: The total cost of our project, I cannot put a dollar amount on it but it will be much less than what Labor will spend. I can't put a precise dollar amount on it but I just want to be very clear about this Sabra.

SABRA LANE: But hang on for a tick, you're prepared to bag the Government but you're not prepared to tell voters exactly what your scheme is going to cost?

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Sabra, what I can say to you is that the international experience is that fibre to the node costs between a third and a quarter of fibre to the premises and it takes about a third to a quarter of the time to construct. Now...

SABRA LANE: Will you tell voters before September 14 exactly what your plan is going to cost?

MALCOLM TURNBULL: We will tell, we will tell voters that it will cost substantially less...

SABRA LANE: But will you give them the exact dollar figure?

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Well, if Senator Conroy and Julia Gillard will open the books of the NBN so we can see all of the contracts to which they have committed so that we know what they have committed to, then we could give a very definitive number but the problem that we face Sabra...

SABRA LANE: But still not a yes or no. Will you give a full figure by September 14?

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Sabra, your persistence is admirable but it's not reasonable. The problem that we face, that everyone faces, is that the NBN Co has an attitude to disclosure that would do credit to the Kremlin. They, we do not have access to the financial details of this business, we don't have access to the contractual commitments they've got so we will inherit a great many costs and commitments that we don't know about now that will impact on what the final cost will be.

Now what we will do and I give this promise, when we get into government, if we do, we will have a thoroughly transparent audit of the NBN so that people will understand precisely what it will cost and how long it will take to complete the project on the current plan and what the implications were in savings of time and cost would be of an alternative approach of the kind that I have described.